Preludes
by The Sh33p
Summary: A routine planet clearing job sets off a chain of events that will eventually effect the course of the universe... Songfic, semiAUish, R&R, enjoy!
1. For Whom The Bell Tolls

  
  
**Disclaimer:** I do not own DBZ.  
  
**Foreword:** This is essentially a prequel to my Hybrid Theory series, **BUT** it isn`t directly involved and can be used as a substitute for the Bardock Special if someone wants. Also note that this is only listed with Goku and Raditz because they`re the only TV series characters who really show up in this one.  
  


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**Preludes  
**_ For Whom The Bell Tolls_   
  
  
  


Kanassa. A desert hellhole inhabited by a race of powerful psychic warriors. These people averaged in at about the same size as most normal human beings as far as height went, though they were exceptionally muscular, scaly, tough and well adapted to life in the desert. The world they inhabited was rumored - incorrectly, of course - to grant psychic powers to those who live there long enough, powers which included the ability to see into the future.   
  
It had been a gift of vexing nature, in more ways than one. Because of their gift, the people of Kanassa were able to see changes in the weather patterns of their world, and they were able to perfectly tell what an enemy`s next move would be before it was even made. The people of Kanassa were gifted and cursed because of this fact, and they had spent generations training a hardened warrior class, even going so far as to teach children how to fight as a result of it.   
  
In the end though, as Warrior Leader Sousu Patas desperately threw his arms up into a block, it was going to prove absolutely futile in every single way one could imagine. In an instant, scales crumbled and bones worn hard by decades of top level combat training cracked and broke from what was considered, by his attacker, to be a damnably weak blow.   
  
"Doesn`t look like we`ll get much resistance here," a woman stated, climbing out of a hauntingly familiar silver pod as the attacker drew his arm back, spitefully kicking the surviving Kanassan in the chest. The rest was the warrior`s instant death, flying back before his entire chest exploded into a gaping hole. The body landed with a crash into a wall made of adobe, bringing an entire building down around the fallen defender`s body.   
  
Great walls hung behind that same building, stretching hundreds of feet skyward, reflecting as a concrete gray to the eyes of the five aliens standing before it. It was a fortress that had taken twenty years simply to set the foundations for, the only stronghold on the entire planet and apparently the place where the entire species had converged in preparation.   
  
Toma smugly lowered his leg back down, glancing over at Bardock with an amused expression. "I don`t really see why you wanted us to wait for the full moon anyway," he stated with an equally amused voice. The five member team`s commander merely shrugged in reply, narrowing his eyes and tapping one of the buttons on his scouter. It wasn`t one of the advanced models, it could only read individual powers of up to 15,000 or so, though Bardock had rigged his with a safety device that caused it to shut down rather than explode as a result of overloading. Despite the fact that it was basic, it did the trick well enough that he knew what he and the others were dealing with.   
  
"Pay attention to your scouter, Toma. We`re five people averaging at 1,200 having to deal with fighters packing 1,000 for their main soldiers. Five against several thousand, do the math," Bardock shot back bluntly, looking up at the midnight clouds and pooling a bit of energy into one hand. "Caught off your guard again, eh?" Celipa quipped, drawing an annoyed glance from the other, who merely huffed and leered over at the fortress. "Doesn`t mean we couldn`t have some fun if we tried it during daylight," he grumbled.   
  
"Doin` somethin` boss?" Panboukin, the heaviest of the five Saiyans, asked. "Getting us a nightlight," Bardock replied smoothly, flinging the collected energy out of his hand and sending it skyward before letting loose with a faster, weaker bit of energy, this time in the form of a thin, precise beam, which struck the first blast perfectly once it made it into the clouds, literally blasting open a gaping hole in the blackness of the sky to display the full moon of the planet.   
  
_ Make us fight on the hill in the early day   
  
_ The sound to follow was one that had lit up the nightmares of Kanassans for close to seventy years as all five of the Saiyan warriors gazed up into the light of the moon and found themselves changing instantly. Eyes began to fade to a solid, bloody shade of red, brownish fur sprouted across their bodies, thick and tough. Tails lengthened, bodies became wider and taller in a matter of seconds, and snouts lined with teeth sharp enough to sever a man in half with frightening ease came to force through the faces of the five Saiyans.   
  
_ Constant chill deep inside   
  
_ By the time the transformation had ended, all five Oozaru were being attacked by every warrior in the fortress, with ki blasts powerful enough to level naval battleships zinging off of the battlements of the walls, dozens at a time. Battlecries, epic in their desperation, sounded throughout the enormous structure that surrounded what the Oozaru could now identify as a largely built city, filled with the hustle and bustle of activity that was obviously coming in response to the impending assault.   
  
Not that it would do them any good.   
  
_ Shouting gun, on they run through the endless grey   
  
_ Toma let out a feral roar and drew his arm back, quickly swiping a closed fist across the top of the external wall, ending the lives of close to a hundred Kanassans in one fell swoop. Totepo - the veteran member of the group - was faster to get right to business though, opening his mouth with an equally loud roar and vomiting forth an immense blast of raw energy, sheering through the enormous walls in seconds and continuing on to plow a wide, deep trench into the inside of the city it protected.   
  
"Rally! This is the moment we have spent our lives training for, let`s not waste it now!" One of the Kanassans shouted, putting his hands forward and unleashing a machine gun-styled series of energy blasts up at the face of one of the Oozaru, namely Panboukin.   
  
_ On they fight, for they are right, yes, but who's to say?   
  
_ "They aren`t invincible!" A Kanassan exclaimed with glee, succeeding in slicing open the giant ape`s cheek with one of his blasts. His effort was rewarded with a swift, lethal swipe from Panboukin`s tail, reducing the warrior to a cloud of blood and scales, spraying through the air like bullets to kill a dozen or so of his comrades.   
  
_ For a hill men would kill, why? They do not know   
  
_ By daybreak, the slaughter was over.   
  
Thousands of dead bodies - or in most cases, what was left of them - littered the ground. Buildings that once held a primitively basic charm to them had been reduced to violently crafted ruins, and craters marked the entire span of what had once been a great city. It was still a city though, only now it was a city of the dead, shared by five solitary members of the living, the same people who had so ruthlessly, uncaringly slaughtered the Kanassans like animals.   
  
The same people who now sat around inside of a crater with one another, talking about the past night`s events like it was all one big camping trip to them.   
  
"I`ll never get the hang of that," Celipa complained dryly, fixing her scouter back into place. "That makes two of us... Sometimes I can remember bits and pieces of it all, but most of the time it`s like a dream. I`ll remember most of it for a little while and then completely forget," Totepo replied. "I only remember the little bastard who gave me this... Ossna damn thing itches like hell," Panboukin grumbled his way into the conversation, scratching at the open cut on his cheek with annoyance.   
  
"Bardock say`s he can remember everything," Toma said with a smirk. Celipa let out a blunt laugh in reply. "He doesn`t even remember when his own son was born!" She replied. Bardock only leaned forward and spat out the piece of grass he had turned into a chew toy over the course of an hour or so, leaning forward and shaking his head. "What`s the point of getting attached them when they`re always sent away?" He asked cynically. "Do you even know how many kids you have?" Toma asked, obviously mocking in his tone.   
  
" Raditz," Bardock answered carelessly. "Wrong," Celipa cut in. "You completely forgot that you had a third son born just the other day."   
  
"How the hell was I supposed to know when the only news we ever get this far out is about the damned Royal Family?" Bardock asked. "We were only at the hospital yesterday," Toma pointed out. "Given how often you come back half-dead, it`s not too surprising either... Hell, surprised Koroumi only smacked you once this time," Celipa commented. "Through a wall," Bardock finished, completely unphased at the mention of his wife`s antics. His relationship with her had never been the best, after all. "Could`ve at least stopped in to see the little runt," Totepo commented.   
  
"I don`t even know his name," Bardock shrugged, and at that moment, his scouter went wild. In near unison, every member of the team shot up to their feet, but by then it was too late to do much good.   
  
_ Men of five, still alive through the raging glow   
  
_ The attack to follow was swift and stealthy, unnervingly silent as well. Bardock let out a wheezing gag as the chop went to the back of his neck, sending him crashing to his knees in disorientation more than actual pain. The same attack was made an instant later on both Toma and Celipa, who met it with similar reactions, both falling forward from the stunning effects of the attacks rather than any actual pain. Totepo was the fastest to react though, with over three decades 'in the biz,' he had the instincts to duck out of the way, knowingly kicking Panboukin in the stomach and throwing him out of the way of another attack, allowing them both to avoid what had happened to Bardock, Toma and Celipa.   
  
Gone insane from the pain and then they surely know   
  
A haunting laugh echoed through the crater as Totepo got back to his feet, followed by an utterly annoyed Panboukin, both glaring over at the demonically smiling Kanassan, who was apparently set ablaze in a white aura.   
  
"Fools!" He chastised sharply. "You came to this planet seeking our gift, well I gave it to you," the Kanassan growled. "With time, you might have changed, might have understood the futility of your ways but now... Now you must suffer the way we did."   
  
"What the hell is he talking about?!" Panboukin growled angrily. "I don`t know but I think it`s time to shut him up," Totepo replied, pooling up energy into his right hand.   
  
"Oh, you may silence me, but can you silence the screams in your friends` minds? For they now bear our gift - and our curse... They will see the future, and they will see their own dooms, just like we did, _unable to do anything about it at all_!"   
  
The Kanassan broke into a fit of laughter, but it didn`t last. Totepo made sure of it himself, blasting the already dying warrior right out of existence with one furious bolt of ki, plowing out a second crater into the wall of the one he and the others were already located in.   
  
_ For whom the bell tolls   
  
_ A boy at the age of four, a man at the age of five. Toma had no clue what he was seeing or even how it was happening, the child wouldn`t face him but he could tell it was a Saiyan. With a tail like that, it had to be. It was the middle of a field at night, atop a gigantic rock pillar as the child stared vacantly into a moonless, star lit sky.   
  
And then the boy who had been a man at five became an aged war veteran at thirteen, standing atop the shattered remains of that same pillar. His tail was gone, his hair had changed but Toma recognized him all the same.   
  
And then the sequence ended. He was standing on Bejita. It was the afternoon, the red-and-orange skies of the capital city sparked with a second sun that seemed to stand out even in the background of the first. But something was wrong, very wrong...   
  
The second sun was growing. Fast.   
  
_ Time marches on   
  
_ She saw herself running down a nearly vacant hangar, filled to the brim with mostly empty Saiyan space pods, being trailed by a boy of the age of two, though there were two others as well. A sobbing infant who bore more than a passing resemblance to Bardock was held in one arm, another infant, though this one was wounded and screaming twice as loud as his counterpart, being held in the other.   
  
With moments to spare, she came to a screeching halt, the boy behind her toppling over after tripping on his own feet while she set either of the infants down into either space pod, gently pausing to run a hand down the cheek of the one who was injured.   
  
And then she stepped back, said something indecipherable and grabbed the older boy, literally slinging him into a space pod, kicking and screaming before she keyed in the controls and slammed the pod shut. "Just live," she ordered with the tone of a surrogate mother, darting down the hallway and hitting the mandatory launch buttons for every pod in the hangar at once.   
  
_ For whom the bell tolls   
  
_ He was standing alone atop a half-a-mile tall building. Injury marred him, but he couldn`t really feel it. All he felt was emotion; desperation, hatred, betrayal and rage like none he`d ever felt in his life, mixed with a hope that seemed so out of place it could scarcely be comprehended. Slowly, he leered skyward, watching a small speck of black against the immense glare of the sun, which caused his eyes to naturally wince somewhat to compensate.   
  
"Totepo... Panboukin..."   
  
He heard the words, but didn`t even know he was saying them. It was like he was nothing more than a passenger in his own body, able to feel the emotions of whoever this was, able to distinctly, _definately_ identify the body as his own and even able to smell the blood, sweat and tears streaked around his nose.   
  
"Celipa... Toma..."   
  
He could even feel this man`s sorrow, joy, love and hatred as if it were his own - because in truth, these things _were_ his own.   
  
"... Kakarot..."   
  
His son`s name? What was going on here?   
  
"This is for _you_!"   
  
An aura of bluish fire shot off of the ground and...   
  
_ Take a look to the sky just before you die   
  
_ He woke up, finding himself bathed in bluish slop, warm to the touch and a bit stinging to feel.   
  
_ It's the last time you will   
  
_ "All three of `em at once?" A familiar, slightly overweight voice asked, obviously more than a little concerned. Bardock slowly pried his eyes open with a hyperactive surge of energy rushing through his entire body. He found himself initially greeted by two faces, namely one Doctor Malaka, and another Doctor Planthor. He could remember them _very_ well, mainly since these were the same two doctors who had both cared for Queen Noyin on her death bed mere weeks earlier, as well as delivered both of his sons. In addition to that, at least Planthor had delivered the Prince Vegeta, _and_ they had both been assigned as the chief medics for Bardock`s team.   
  
After them, he found himself staring at the forms of Totepo and Panboukin, the taller of the two leaned against the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest, the shorter eating a drumstick large enough for the leg bone to serve as a weapon to cave a man`s head in with ease. Bardock instantly knew why Panboukin was eating so casually though, it was his way of showing concern. Boukin, as most people called him, was one of the few overweight Saiyans alive, mainly due to three factors. The first was that he had a slightly slower immune system, the second was that he ate when he was worried and the third was that he worried a _lot_.   
  
Totepo on the other hand, bore the look of a hardened soldier without so much as a bit of concern showing. Bardock saw straight through the facade, and it brought a bit of a smirk to him beneath the oxygen mask that was strapped to his face.   
  
_ "I really hate when they don`t salt it right... It`s-" "-amned idiots need to be on their guard more oft-" "Am I hearing things?"   
  
_ Four individual voices, two saying the same thing at the same moment, echoed through Bardock`s mind. The first two, in order, were Panboukin and Totepo, and the second two were Celipa and Toma.   
  
_ Blackened roar, massive roar fills the crumbling sky   
Shattered goal fills his soul with a ruthless cry   
  
"... What the hell?"_ Bardock thought, careful not to voice his words. Malaka and Planthor were both notoriously concerned for him, to the extent that they thought he was a lunatic for all of the times he`d come back half-dead and gone back out without so much as a care in the world, uncaring even of how few soldiers he took with him to battle.   
  
_ Stranger now, are his eyes, to this mystery   
  
"You may silence me, but can you silence the screams in your friends` minds?"   
  
_ "Did anyone else hear that?" Toma asked drearily, glancing out from the confines of the regen tank they had stuck him in. "Hear what?" Totepo asked. "Guess that chop knocked his hearing out too," Boukin joked, smirking ruthlessly at his currently immobile comrade, knowing that whatever he did, Toma wouldn`t be able to do jack to stop him other than trying to insult him.   
  
For all of his concern, Panboukin had one ill sense of humor to go with it.   
  
"Don`t you even think it, lard ass," Toma growled annoyedly as Panboukin grinned like a maniac.   
  
_ He hears the silence so loud   
  
"Nice to see Boukin and Toma are still bitching... Means we`ll actually get out of this dumpy hellhole by the end of the day,"_ Bardock heard Celipa think. It was absolutely unnerving to him as he started to struggle somewhat, shifting his focus off of the others and to the doctors, namely Malaka, who was staring at a nearby console with a very curious expression.   
  
Before he could do or say anything though, another vision hit.   
  
_ Crack of dawn, all is gone except the will to be   
  
_ A planet, familiar, enormous and colored an implacably dangerous tone of orange and red, streaked with faded white and resting amid a background of two suns in the distance, forever locked on a collision course that would one day birth a super nova. Bardock recognized it instantly, because he had seen it dozens of times.   
  
It was Vegetasei. Also known as Bejita, and a good many other names. Something was wrong though, because there was an odd cloud of specks hanging in front of the planet, accompanied by a larger speck that he could vaguely recognize as a Saucer-class War Transport, but there was a faint orange glow coming from above it, matched by a bright silver glow within the larger cloud.   
  
The silver streaked towards the top of the ship, where the orange glow was coming from, but it was promptly consumed as the ball of energy shot up in size, becoming as large as the already huge ship itself, then continuing to expand until finally...   
  
"Ossna, no..." Bardock said to himself at the vision, watching the Death Ball tumble forward with speed he could scarcely even perceive, wanting to somehow go down there and try to stop it in a futile effort, but unable to even try and do anything other than watch.   
  
And listen.   
  
"**_KAKAROT!!!_**"   
  
_ Now they see what will be, blinded eyes to see   
  
_ The vision ended before he could hear, say, do or even think anything else, lurching forward as Malaka spoke up, listening to the doctor over the sound of his own ragged breathing.   
  
"It seems that their bodies are all fine - actually a little better than usual since they`re actually letting themselves heal this time..." The doctor stated. "But?" Totepo asked expectantly. "But there`s been a complete change in all of their brainwaves... Everything keeps spiking briefly and their memory centers seem to have something wrong with them, I`m not entirely sure what it might be though."   
  
"In other words, you don`t have a single clue if it`s good or not," Boukin deduced with little effort. "Pretty much," Planthor replied.   
  
_ For whom the bell tolls   
  
_ "Yeah well... Since you`re all out of it, me an` Totepo here`ll handle the next job on our own," Panboukin stated. "Dumpy little hellhole called Meat," he added. The other Saiyan merely shrugged and gave a small salute to Bardock before walking out of the room. "Must still be pissy about going bald," Toma commented dryly. "Not everyone`s as lucky as you when it comes to hair genes," Boukin shot back before following the other Saiyan out of the room. By then though, it was already too late.   
  
Celipa`s thoughtful silence shattered, at least on the mental level, as the two left.   
  
_ Time marches on   
  
"They`re both going to die..."   
  
For whom the bell tolls   
  


End Part One

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	2. Blitzkrieg

  
  
**Disclaimer:** Still don`t own it.  
  


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** Preludes**  
_ Blitzkrieg_   
  
  
  


"Looks like someone beat us to the punch," Totepo stated darkly, leering around with an uneasy view of the surrounding area. Meat wasn`t ever much of a habitable world, that was true right off the bat, but it wasn`t everyday that world supposedly hosting a million and a half people simply emptied and all the cities turned into little more than semi-ordered rubble for as far as the eye could see. Even the ground was stained red from blood that had obviously been there a _while_, but no bodies in sight at any point. Unnerving in more ways than one.   
  
"'Beat' doesn`t do it right," Panboukin replied, slapping his pod shut and stepping out of the crater around it before looking around. "Looks like it`s been cleared for quite some time."   
  
"I know... Be on your guard though, I think this is a trap," Totepo explained, lowering his voice accordingly before putting on his scouter and tapping the button to turn it on. Instantly, he realized just how much of a trap this was.   
  
Panboukin only nodded in agreement.   
  
"Twelve of `em, plus one farther away."   
  
"Last one`s the strongest... I think he`s reading at a stable 20,000," Totepo stated shortly, resolute in his words. "We`d be creamed even if we went Oozaru," Boukin growled. "Can`t do that `cause the moon ain`t out."   
  
"We`ve definately been set up then," Totepo stated. "Big time," Boukin replied. "We`ll make a break for the pods on my mark," Totepo ordered, drawing down as if into a fighting stance, something that Panboukin copied without hesitation. The two growled lightly and began to power up as several forms emerged from hiding behind a number of buildings, each of them utterly smug in appearance.   
  
Totepo recognized each of them, but in specific, he recognized the warrior with the horns on his head.   
  
"Ready?" Boukin asked. Totepo merely nodded.   
  
"**_MARK!_**"   
  
An explosion sounded behind them, obviously from a distance away as eight more warriors appeared from behind, trashing the pods in an instant with several high powered blasts of energy.   
  
"Shit," Boukin muttered. "Looks like we`re going to go down fighting then," Totepo stated with a roguish smirk, showing a bit of his former youth even through his old age. Most Saiyans didn`t live past thirty, Totepo had made it all the way to seventy-five and by most accounts, he was only getting started.   
  
"Dibs on breaking Darwel`s horns," Totepo exclaimed. "Bet I can break more noses than you though," Panboukin retorted with a grin. "You`re on."   
  
With a pair of loud war cries, both Saiyans lunged forward to meet their would-be assassins head on, fearless of the repercussions and knowin g that they probably wouldn`t survive anyway. It was a special kind of craziness that drew Saiyans to fight the battles that would in all likelihood kill them, and despite the fact that Totepo and Panboukin were two of the most ragged, unfit warriors in the entire employ of the Saiyan 'clearance teams,' they exmplified this fact like few others, heartily running after death like a lawyer after an ambulance.   
  
_ Let us have peace, let us have life  
Let us escape the cruel night  
  
_ Celipa shook her head dimly, tugging her armor up a bit further until it set just right in the way that she usually wore it. Her tail still ached a bit, the jolts that coursed through the regen tanks always left if feeling like someone had just lightly rolled an iron over it, leaving it stuff, sensitive and more than a little static charged.   
  
"What now?" Toma asked, kicking the cramp of out of one knee and straightening his own tail to the extent that the bones within popped several times as a result. "I don`t know," Celipa replied while Bardock plopped down and tugged his gauntlets on. "Bardock?" She asked.   
  
"For now, I`m going to go make sure that Totepo and Boukin are alright, you two stay here though," he ordered darkly. "I have a feeling you`ll be needed soon anyway..."   
  
"Alright," both nodded in agreement. "I don`t think they`re alive though," Celipa stated. "Those two`re too stupid to know how to die, they`re alive," Toma retorted, though Bardock was already heading for the exit, despite Planthor and Malaka`s accompanying protests.   
  
Halfway down the hall outside though, Bardock began to slow. Something was happening in the back of his mind, but this time he stayed firmly rooted to reality, slowly trudging to a stop in front of a specific window that allowed a view into the newborn section of the hospital complex. What he saw there both amazed and surprised him as a screaming infant lay inside of a Newbirth Pod, furiously shaking around with all of the determination of the greatest warriors to ever live, though he was merely a child.   
  
The appearance of it all brought pause and a smile to Bardock`s battle scarred face.   
  
_ "Kakarot, eh? You`ve got your mother`s skin, but everywhere else, you`re definately my kid,"_ he thought with a bit of amusement. _"You even have my tail and that fluke strand of hair that always sits in front of my forehead,"_ he observed, suddenly feeling the edge of duty tug at his senses. "Well, I`ll see you later, Kakarot," he stated, turning to leave.   
  
He never quite made it very far though.   
  
_ Let us have time, let the sun shine  
Let us beware the deadly sign  
  
_ **_"Wait Bardock,"_** a voice called, and Bardock found himself standing amid a fighting ring, surrounded by the sounds of battle. **_"You wanted psychic powers, didn`t you?"_**  
  
"What is this?!" Bardock yelled, turning around and immediately dodging out of the way as a boy resembling himself, only so very much smaller and in an orange fighting outfit darted by. The child couldn`t have been older than four and yet he was doing battle with another boy with almost as much skill, if not more, than Bardock himself had ever possessed.   
  
A flurry of movement, a strike to the chin of the first boy and the second, lavender haired and blue eyed in a royally familiar sort of way, went staggering back, just as the entire scene switched out again, leaving Bardock to stand drearily in the middle of a warzone.   
  
Toma.   
  
Toma was standing right in front of him.   
  
And then he went down with a strange smile, blood spurting out of his chest as Celipa darted into view, a trio of space pods randomly shooting out of the facility that housed them, each heading in different directions.   
  
"**_TOMA!!!_**"   
  
_ The day is coming, armageddon's near   
  
_ And he was standing back in the medcenter once again, feeling a little lightheaded but still on his feet. "There it was again..." He said to himself, looking up warily and catching sight of Kakarot`s wailing, which had promptly intensified twice over. _"He sensed it,"_ Bardock thought. How and why he knew, he didn`t understand, he just knew that the days-old baby had known.   
  
Tapping his scouter though, Bardock felt sorely disappointed.   
  
"Only an average powerlevel," he growled. "And here I thought you were special, like Raditz."   
  
And with that, Bardock leapt back down the hall, leaving Kakarot alone with but one other child, who`s pod was marked only by one name: Brolli.   
  
_ Inferno's coming, can we survive the blitzkrieg?   
  
_ Hours had passed by as Totepo rose back up out of his crater again, gnashing his teeth in defiance and holding the detached skull of one of his attackers like a prized trophy, grinning mere seconds later. Panboukin was standing not too far off to the side, worn down and bloodier by far than his older comrade, but still fighting with every ounce of determination that could be found in a man who knew he was about to die anyway.   
  
"Why?" Totepo asked, storming back up out of the crater with his expression suddenly shifting, from satisfied hatred to outright psychosis in under a second. "I just do what I`m told," Darwel replied, lunging forward at his brutalized foe. Totepo had taken a massive beating through the battle, his tail was gone, his armor shattered in no less than eight places, a massive gash across his back and blood streaking like tears from just beneath his eyes, yet he didn`t quit. The pain was like a hard drug, the fight was all he knew and he was going to show that as best he could.   
  
In a violent display on the other end of the battle though, an equally injured Panboukin fought his attackers with less skill, but more power. He wasn`t fast enough to sneak through their defenses, but he was certainly brutish enough to smash straight through them, breaking the arm of one of the aliens and plunging his hand through the attacker`s chest, tearing out one of four hearts in the process.   
  
"Don`t piss with us," he growled, promptly squeezing the organ to pulp in an instant before using his free hand to slap away a kick, breaking the other alien`s leg like a toothpick as a result. Boukin turned though, allowing his arm to slide further through the chest of the first attacker and using his blood soaked hand to grab the throat of the second, promptly slamming him down into the ground and stangling him then and there.   
  
Totepo let out a scream of equal intensity, swinging around on Darwel`s horns and planting a knee into one shoulder to root the devil-like warrior into place, then callously breaking his neck. He didn`t stop there though, Totepo was known as a rugged, vicious warrior in battle and he enjoyed proving the point to the extreme, twisting his deceased foe`s head right off and spiking it into the ground like a football.   
  
"Who knew we`d actually live this long, eh?" Panboukin asked with a dazed camaraderie to his voice, planting a foot into one of his foe`s bodies and then yanking his arm free with a disgusting slurping sound as blood gushed to fill the holes in the soldier`s chest. "Indeed," a new voice growled, a bit on the blubbery side.   
  
"Dodoria," Totepo stated, glancing over his shoulder at the overweight warrior. "Frieza`s left hand man," Boukin replied. "I see my reputation precedes me," Dodoria replied with a smirk. "Only because you`re fatter than me," Panboukin exclaimed. At this though, the commander of the hit squad promptly stopped playing around, growling ferally and beginning to power up.   
  
"Nice knowin` ya, Tepo," Panboukin stated. "You too, Boukin," Totepo replied. It would be over before they knew what hit them.   
  
_ The blitzkrieg, the blitzkrieg   
  
_ Twenty minutes after the battle had ended, Bardock crashed down. Two minutes after that, he was standing alone on the edge of the crater, glancing around with an uneasy look about him. The planet was obviously the sight of a recent battle, and a very violent one too, as demonstrated by the bodies that were scattered all over the place, but two, in specific, caught his eye.   
  
_ "No,"_ he thought, dashing forward with no delay. "Totepo! Panboukin!" He yelled, coming to a complete, dead halt in front of the two bodies, which lay next to one another in jumbled heaps. Totepo had been the one to die the quickest, that much was pretty apparent from the way that his forehead had been caved in, but Panboukin was still gasping for air, a fist-sized crater in his stomach, even through his body armor, showing the damage in a grotesque way.   
  
"Who did this to you?! Who?!" Bardock demanded, kneeling down next to the overweight Saiyan on the ground. "Thirteen of `em... Heh," Boukin wheezed, grunting out a second later as the pain hit him again. "Got twelve of the bastards... Th`other w`s jus` too much," he stated, words slurring halfway through. "Don`t die on me, Boukin," Bardock ordered sternly, gently shaking his downed friend by the shoulders. "W`s Dodoria..." Panboukin chuckled lightly. "Said he was fatter `n me... Got away with it too..."   
  
"_Don`t die, damn you_!" Bardock yelled, shaking Panboukin a bit harder now.   
  
"Frieza`sold us`out... Ordered th` hit `n ev`rythin`," Boukin stated. "Frieza?!" Bardock demanded. "I thought he ordered this one!"   
  
"W`s a setup. He`s gettin` scared, man... He`s afraid of us... Afraid of you... Afraid of what we might become," Boukin explained with his dying breaths. "He`s afraid of the old legends..."   
  
"Boukin..."   
  
"We held `em off as best we could... Knew we wouldn`t win but hey..." The overweight Saiyan laughed again, promptly dying on the spot without another word to be said, the life literally draining out of his body as his eyes rolled back, leaving Bardock to hold nothing but the corpse. "... I`m sorry, Boukin."   
  
Seconds went by as a misty eyed Breh Bardock stood himself back up on shaky legs, turning away and setting his gaze onto the incoming speck of blue light in the far distance. Again he knelt, but this time there was nothing truly soft about it as Bardock reached into his armor and drew out a simple piece of white cloth he`d often used as a sweat rag, wiping it first over Totepo`s dead face, then again over that of Panboukin before standing up silently and wrapping it around his head as a bandana, soaked in the blood of fallen enemies.   
  
"You should be proud of them," Dodoria exclaimed chidingly as Bardock turned around, initially staring downward at his feet. "I am," he exclaimed darkly, slowly raising his eyes off of the ground and looking up to set them both squarely on the murderer of his men. "They fought to the bitter end, and then they fought some more. They do me more pride than my own children, and for them, I`m going to stop you and your schemes or die trying," Bardock said with murder in his eyes, and an equally vicious tone in his voice, quietly reaching up and removing his scouter before pulping it to dust without another word.   
  
"What lovely words, they`ll look even better on your tombstone."   
  
_ Save us from fate, save us from hate   
  
_ "We were Frieza`s arms and legs," Bardock growled.   
  
_ Save ourselves before it's too late   
  
_ "And he still betrayed us," Toma unknowingly finished, stepping coldly down the hallway with Celipa at his side. The visions were getting worse, more frequent and longer at the same time. How and why, neither knew exactly, but they _did_ know that the visions inexorably linked Vegetasei`s apparent destruction with Frieza and his cohorts.   
  
"This could become very ugly, Toma," Celipa warned, pausing briefly to smile over at Kakarot, who was still whining a plea to the fates above for some attention, care, _anything_. "Then we should relish the time we`ve got left to have some piece... Definately Bardock`s kid, eh?" He asked, glancing into the newborn room and trying to ignore the irate wails of the other child, who was not only louder, but was also practically having a nervous breakdown.   
  
"Brolli," Celipa stated dimly, glancing at the name on the Newbirth Pod. "Paragus` kid."   
  
"And speaking of Paragus," Toma stated, lightly elbowing Celipa in the side as Paragus walked into view, one of his eyes covered by a patch, cuts and bruises abounding all over his face and a large chunk of his armor missing. "What the hell happened to you?" Toma asked as the other warrior faltered under his own weight, collapsing against one of the walls and sliding down, leaving a trail of blood to stain the wall.   
  
"P... Protect... Brolli..." Paragus ordered, just as several shadows rounded through the hallway. In a matter of seconds though, Paragus gasped for air, while a pair of large Saiyan men appeared behind him. Conveniently, several disturbing chinks and cracks could be heard as the two lifted him to his feet, the right hand of one and the left hand of the other both vanishing behind Brolli`s father as it happened.   
  
"Where are you taking him?" Toma asked quietly. "King Vegeta has requested a private... Audience between Paragus and himself. That is all you need to know," the warriors stated, immediately backpedaling and dragging Paragus with them, even as the last bits of life bled out of him.   
  
That was when a third Saiyan, easily identifiable as a royal Velg`larn - an assassin - by the marking across his right shoulder pad, and the small but sharp knife across his hip. This one said nothing, rudely pushing past Toma and Celipa and knocking over Doctor Planthor before keying in a universal access code and opening the door into the Newborn Chamber.   
  
What followed next was absolutely sickening as he shrewdly locked the door behind him with another universal code before drawing his knife, still saying absolutely nothing while walking slowly, methodically toward a single, specific Newbirth Pod.   
  
"Get him out of there! Now!" Planthor screeched, trying to work in every access code he knew to override the one the Velg`larn had used to no avail. "Shit," Celipa growled. "It`s already starting..."   
  
"Not if I can help it," Toma replied, drawing back and arm and pausing only briefly as the assassin halted precisely in front of Brolli`s pod, grasping the infant by the tail. It caused Brolli`s cry to become even louder, automatically kicking on both Celipa and Toma`s scouters, which both summarily exploded in unison. It was then painfully obvious just why the attempted assassination was going to happen as the Velg`larn lifted Brolli out of the pod, upside down and screeching still.   
  
Slowly, painfully slowly, the assassin drew back, holding the shocked infant upside down by the tail in front of himself before speaking several utterances to himself and making the first strike. It was almost perfectly calculated, and would have killed Brolli instantly with a strike into the heart, if not for the sudden shock to his hand and the equivelent shock of the glass shattering as Toma raged into the room, ignoring the cries of Planthor.   
  
Celipa wasn`t too far behind but the damage was done by the time that Toma could deck the other Saiyan across the cheek, removing several teeth and causing the would-be murderer to miss his intended strike. Instead of the heart, the knife swept upward, gashing a cut across Brolli`s stomach and then stabbing into his side before the Velg`larn completely lost his grip on the weapon.   
  
Celipa was a split second faster than gravity, diving beneath the screaming child and catching him before swooping up to her feet, even as Toma brutally pummeled the assassin.   
  
"**_WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!_**" Toma demanded, smashing his fist across the back of the assassin`s head and then kneeing him in the base of the tail before violently prying the appendage loose form the would-be murderer`s waist, bending it in far too tight a way for the other to do anything but lie there in agony. "The orders came from King Vegeta himself..." The Velg`larn stated with a wheeze.   
  
"... _What_?"   
  
"I`m not lying... King Vegeta ordered the execution because the child has the potential to surpass Prince Vegeta already..."   
  
"I think he already hit that level as is," Celipa stated blandly, just as electronics and lights started blowing out from the onslaught of incoherent power that Brolli was putting out. This was technology _designed_ specifically to handle power outbursts from warriors of all kinds and Brolli was demolishing it as a mere three day old infant, with an utterly incoherent burst of energy no less.   
  
"Then Vegeta is an arrogant fool," Toma stated, promptly drawing back and striking the deathblow into the assassin`s neck. Planthor arrived just in time to watch the surviving Saiyan male rise up, shaking blood off of his hand while the dead assassin lay with his head decapitated from a stabbing chop.   
  
"Celipa," Toma began, turning towards her with that a bit roguish smirk of his. "Yeah?" She asked. "Get Kakarot, launch him somewhere... You know the coordinates. Do the same for Brolli, and if you can find Raditz, get him along too."   
  
"What about you?" Celipa asked. "I have work to do," Toma replied, promptly jumping out through the busted window as Celipa turned towards the sobbing Kakarot, lifting the boy up and holding him in an awkwardly tender sort of way. "Put them down..." Planthor requested more than ordered. "Get off the planet, Planthor. Same for Malaka, I have a funny feeling that the shit`s going to be hitting the fan _very_ soon."   
  
_ Come to our need, hear our plea   
  
_ When Bardock surfaced again from the pile of bloodied debris around him, Dodoria was gone, as were the bodies of Totepo and Panboukin. He was hurt, badly. One shot had completely leveled him even with the boost of power that his recent recovery had afforded. It was no wonder why Dodoria was only Frieza`s left hand man, for all of his ignorance, power and lethality, he was bungling and never made absolutely certain a job was complete.   
  
Exactly why Bardock knew that he was alone on the planet.   
  
The sole survivor on a world once occupied by hundreds upon thousands, not including animal life.   
  
"Damn you, Dodoria," he growled, staggering uneasily down through the trench of the overweight warrior`s only attack. It had been unbelievably one sided, Bardock hadn`t even gotten the chance to throw out _one_ punch, kick or blast and Dodoria had flattened him with only a mid-powered shot. Humiliating, degrading and outright angering, the fire under Bardock had been lit because of it and now he wasn`t going to stop.   
  
He couldn`t stop. Totepo and Panboukin needed to be avenged, and he had to warn the others - though Toma and Celipa were probably doing that by now.   
  
_ Save ourselves before the Earth bleeds   
  
_ "Frieza..." Bardock wheezed.   
  
"I`m coming for you..."   
  
_** "I gave you those powers, Bardock, so that you may witness the horror of your end... Just like we did!"**_ A mocking voice yelled into his thoughts, just as another vision hit. Bardock let out a scream and fell to his knees, only to find that he was still standing an instant later. Knee deep in water. Blue water, in a pond.   
  
Fishing rods held out in front of him, and as he looked up, he found himself confronted by no less than four people, sitting together as a family.   
  
A man who bore an undoubtable resemblance to himself, dressed in a pair of plain, faded jeans and a sports jacket. A youth who looked around the age of four in Bejitan years, twelve by galactic standard, who held the same striking resemblance to him, only more weathered despite his age, a bit paler even than his father, wearing an orange pair of gi pants, a matching overshirt and a dark blue, long sleeved shirt beneath. Another man, Bardock could swear he saw a strikingly younger, less hardened Toma at first, he even had the same height and posture, but something was still uniquely different about him. He even wore different clothing, a pair of loose legged jeans and a long sleeved black shirt.   
  
The last of the group was the one who struck Bardock the most. Obviously the youngest, she still held the fishing rod like a pro, though she obviously lacked the patience for it. If Bardock didn`t know better, he almost could`ve sworn that he was witnessing a miniature version of Celipa, wearing a sweater and a pair of black pants.   
  
And then the vision completely twisted at one hundred and eighty degrees. Bardock found himself standing straight on the side of a Saucer-class War Transport. It was turning slightly, but in the distance he could instantly see it.   
  
Planet Vegeta.   
  
_** "Just like we did..."   
  
** The day is dawning, the time is near   
  
_ With a dry coughing fit, Bardock found himself sitting in his pod a few seconds later. The engines were already prepped, mandatory home course, just like it always was when he was brutalized in a mission and had to go straight home. Today though, as the thruster units kicked in, Bardock knew he wouldn`t just be rushing home, and it wouldn`t be to heal up.   
  
_ Aliens calling, can we survive the blitzkrieg?   
  
** "Just..." **_  
  
"I`ve got to stop him..." He muttered to himself deliriously, blood trailing down into one of his eyes for several seconds before a tired hand wiped it away.   
  
**_ "Like..."   
  
_** "I`m the only one who can..."   
  
**_ "We did..."   
  
_** As the space pod raced into the eternal night of space, a foul, taunting voice trailed it, relentlessly mocking the horrors of the pod`s lone occupant.   
  


_ End Part Two  
  
_


	3. Adrenaline

  
  
**Disclaimer:** I don`t own it. Bye.  
  


* * *

  
  


** Preludes  
**_ Adrenaline   
  
  
  
_

** "The time is soon at hand, Bardock..." **  
  
"Shut up," the brutalized warrior growled emptily at his unseen tormentor, resisting the biting pull at the edge of his senses, literally fighting the oncoming vision off, tooth and nail. It was a disturbing feeling, to be sure. Racing through deep space at close to a thirty-five times the speed of light, bleeding profusely from a dozen major and minor injuries, a blood soaked rag wrapped around his head like a bandana, a badge of pride and honor, of loyalty to his comrades and his people. His armor had shattered in multiple places, one leg was completely numb from the ankle to the knee and the rest of his body was going into adrenal shock.   
  
All in all, Breh Bardock could have - and would have - picked better things to do than getting half-killed while being plagued by visions of futures he could scarcely comprehend, let alone understand or rationalize.   
  
_ You don't feel the pain  
Too much is not enough  
  
"Hope Toma and Celipa are fairing better than I am,"_ Bardock thought, gazing drearily at the main viewport and craning his neck back exhaustedly. It wasn`t long after this that he completely lost conciousness again, be it from blood loss, exhaustion of pain, he didn`t know, nor did he care.   
  
_ Nobody said this stuff makes any sense  
We're hooked again  
  
_   
  
His ultimate destination was a far different sort of place than the decimated pit of a world known as Meat. Planet Vegeta, normally a place of permanent tension, now it was a place teetering on war. Frieza`s men were out in force, a dozen of them for every Saiyan on the planet. Saucers hovered in low orbit of the planet, Gunpods flew overhead in groups of three and on the streets, anarchy was threatening to break out at any second.   
  
These were things not lost on a specific Saiyan woman,currently draped in a hooded cloak since she was trying to hide herself at least a small bit. Her name was Kerim Celipa, she was a woman in her prime, about five Saiyan years old - twenty by galactic standard. In her arms, she carried two children with a maternal instinct as strong as if they were her own. They weren`t though, one of them was the child of a warrior she had never particularly liked, the other was the child of a warrior she considered a surrogate older brother, and both were sobbing irately at their present conditions.   
  
They were also the main reason Celipa was traveling through alleyways and avoiding small groups of people. If she were alone, it`d be a far different story, but she had been tasked - by herself and by Toma - to take care of the two children, one of which seemed to be on a one-way trip to infant mortality given the amount of blood the boy was slowly losing.   
  
Without a word, the woman dove down another alleyway, and as she did so, the streets erupted in violence. An explosion sounded first, and then it was followed by screams of rage and battle like few that she had ever heard, if only because this time, the majority of those screams were coming not from people being cleared out, but by an evenly fought war of sorts. Frieza`s troops and the Saiyans had been on a hairpin for days now, but that had just snapped.   
  
_ Point of no return  
See how the buildings burn   
  
_ "Celipa?!" A familiar voice called out as a dazed looking boy lunged into the alleyway, obviously trying to avoid the chaos breaking out all over the place. "Raditz? Is that you?" Celipa asked, hardly able to recognize him for some reason or another. "Yeah! What`s going on?!" The boy demanded, ducking low as an errant blaster shot zipped through the alley, arcing up high and hitting into the side of a building.   
  
The city was already starting to burn though. Fires were raging, brawls were breaking out, utter chaos reigned like nothing else as Celipa glanced around, expression taut in thought and planning. "All Hell is breaking loose," she finally muttered. "We have to go to the Launch Center," she decided, though her voice carried a note of emptiness in it`s resolve. "The Launch Center? Why?" Raditz asked. "The entire world is falling apart around us, we can`t run now!"   
  
"Maybe you can`t, and maybe I can`t, but what about them?" Celipa asked, turning around to face him finally and revealing a still bleeding, though now unconcious Brolli, and an equally unconcious, though uninjured Kakarot. Raditz was silent as a result. For several seconds he could say nothing, only watch the face of his baby brother in recognition.   
  
He knew what he would have to do if they were to get out of it all alive.   
  
"I know a quicker way... It`s probably going to be a bit of a fight but I can handle my own."   
  
"But can you also handle them? And me?"   
  
"You just handle them," Raditz said with the over confidence of any child burdened with something they only barely understood the enormity of. "I`ll protect all three of you with my life if I have to," he growled. "Then lead the way," Celipa ordered.   
  
_ Light up the night  
Such a pretty sight  
  
** "Look at him Bardock."   
  
** "No..."   
  
** "Look at him."   
  
** "I won`t listen to you."   
  
** "LOOK AT HIM!!!"   
  
** "**GET OUT OF MY MIND!!!**"   
  
_ An agonizing flash.   
  
Kakarot, grown and magnificent, brutalized beyond words. A boy stood near, a downed Namek lay beside him. Something that resembled Frieza in a vague sort of way, arm outstretched, one eye winced shut, covered in his own blood and grinning like a psychopath as the remains of an explosion went by in the distance.   
  
"Boom!" He voiced with a laugh. But Kakarot was silent, boiling over and then...   
  
"You won`t get away with this..."   
  
A grunt and a growl. The world itself seemed to be tearing apart, piece by bloody piece. Lightning shocked up from everywhere, fire tore and his hair rose up.   
  
"_You won`t get away with this_!"   
  
Another laugh, but then the albino tyrant halted in his tracks with a gasp, an action replicated by the boy in Saiyan armor. Loudly, a scream echoed through all of the planet, reaching as far out as deep space. Kakarot`s eyes were blank as he looked up, but the fire of gold was rising all around him like a torch bathed in propane and lit ablaze with napalm.   
  
"**_I WON`T LET YOU GET AWAY WITH THIS!!!_**"   
  
_ Adrenaline keeps me in the game   
  
_ Bardock lurched forward with a gasping scream. What was this all about? Had the entire universe gone completely insane just to try and drag him down with it?   
  
"Kakarot..."   
  
_** "Behold Bardock, a savior has been born."   
  
**_ Another flash.   
  
Five images of him. One, he was young, maybe two years old in Saiyan years, ten in galactic standard. Another, he was three in Saiyan years, fifteen in galactic standard. Another. He was twenty. Another still, twenty five and standing proud and tall. Another and...   
  
_ Adrenaline you don't even feel the pain   
  
_ And he had gold hair and light green eyes.   
  
_** "A savior who can protect the weak and the good from those like Frieza..."   
  
**_ Vegetasei. Wait, it was -   
  
**_ "And you!"   
  
_** - exploding and -   
  
"**_NO!!!_**"   
  
- and Bardock lurched forward again, gagging up his own blood into the foot of the pod`s meager insides, which were only barely spacious enough for Bardock to feel even remotely comfortable most of the time. Emphasis on most.   
  
_ Wilder than your wildest dreams   
  
_ Raggedly holding his head back up, Bardock wiped his mouth off, eyes moistening with tears he could not shed. Was it all real? Or was it just a dream...   
  
_ When you're going to extremes   
  
_ "I have to find out..." He muttered balefully, flopping back with a cough. "This can`t be happening... I have to be delirious... Delirious enough to be talking to myse-" **_"You`re not delirious at all, Bardock. You`re just beginning to know the horrors that we knew..."_**   
  
"Not again," Bardock begged, finally beginning to let those tears fall. **_"Oh, but you`ll see these things again. And again. And again, as many times as it takes for you to realize just what kind of monster you are..."   
  
_** "I`m not a monster," he wept, pride broken, even Saiyan heritage failing to keep everything back. Despite this though, maybe even because of it, the torture continued. Another vision, and a loud scream echoed through the tight confines of the space pod, tearing off into the endless night of deep space.   
  
_ It takes adrenaline   
  
_ "My world is tearing itself apart, my son is off on an errand for someone he isn`t even related to and you call _this_ success?!" King Vegeta demanded. "Get out of my sight!" He ordered, vaporizing the unlucky bearer of bad news right then and there, even as the ancient, sturdy palace walls trembled and shuddered from the violence breaking out across the planet.   
  
Toma was silent though, thankfully unnoticed as he hovered at the edge of the doors into the King`s Public Chambers. No guards were present outside, only a row of solid elites lining the way to the throne. "The only good thing about this is that General Nappa is with him, and even that`s jaded at this point!"   
  
_ "I was right,"_ Toma thought bitterly, listening to events with the ear of a spy, though he wasn`t one by any stretch of the imagination. "Everything is falling apart," he heard. "Captain Zorn!"   
  
"Majesty?"   
  
"Assemble the best warriors available. We`re going to take our grievances to Frieza himself."   
  
_ "The shit is definately hitting the fan,"_ Toma thought, darting away from the entrance into the chamber and literally flying down the halls of the palace for the exit. When he got outside, it was utter pandemonium, Saiyans and Frieza`s men battling it out all over the place. Blaster shots, fireballs and bodies everywhere, but he wasn`t there to see that. Powering up, To Toma charged down the street, defiantly wading through the chaos without a word, pausing only occasionally to backhand in the faces of several of Frieza`s men.   
  
_ You don't feel the pain   
  
_ "_**STOP IT!!!**_" Bardock screamed in agony, both mental and physical at once. Again, the images surged through, leaving him only able to see the future in one eye and the past in the other, with both blinded to the course of the present. It was sickening, and eventually, it got to him, but for whatever reason, his mind just wouldn`t shut down. Again and again he screamed, but for all of his pain, he was met only by the voice of a dead tormentor who refused to let himself, or the one who had killed him, find rest.   
  
**_ "No."   
  
_** Sail through an empty night   
It's only you and I who understand  
There is no plan  
  
A hard crack and the last guard toppled over as Raditz touched back down, wiping a trickle of blood from the side of his mouth with a satisfied smirk. It hadn`t been hard to break in, most of the guards were missing by now, either out in the streets or dead, or in hiding or having left. It didn`t matter though. Quietly as ever, and with a proud bow, Raditz lead the way into the pod hangar, waving his arms inside and pointing the way toward any one of the hundreds of vacant pods in sight.   
  
"Take your pick," he ordered happily. Celipa was unenthused, running inside without a word as Brolli and Kakarot stirred awake and shared screams with each other, though Brolli was by far louder. Raditz wasn`t far behind either, trailing Celipa by a bit since the few guards they`d encountered hadn`t been an easy victory for the boy, especially when he was having to do it without her help.   
  
Seconds went by as Celipa found a pair of space pods that she found to her liking. Both were new, and both were models that featured things like built-in medical systems. She wasn`t sure if it`d work for Brolli given the baby boy couldn`t do a thing manually, and he was on the verge of death, clinging to life with all the tenacity of a true warrior, but still only clinging.   
  
With a yelp, Raditz toppled over behind her, tripping on his own feet on a fluke. Celipa barely seemed to pay him mind. Instead, she gently, maternally set the two infants into either pod, pausing to run a soothing hand down Brolli`s cheek. For a time, it silenced him, and with heavy, sad eyes, he regarded her.   
  
"Don`t die on us Brolli. The universe needs a legend," she said with a mother`s voice, though she knew now that she would never live to have any children for herself. That fact alone though, more than any other, made her all the more willing to show the kind of mother she could have been under different circumstances.   
  
Both of the pods were already set. Brolli`s was going to be headed for a world named Themyscira, out in the uncharted realms. Kakarot was headed for a world on the coordinates of FX-50. The natives called it Earth from what several scouts reported. "Celipa?" Raditz asked as she pushed the pod doors shut and then looked down for a few seconds.   
  
"Hey... You okay?"   
  
Without warning, she whipped around, grabbing Raditz by his collar and forcibly slinging him into another pod, randomly keying in the coordinates for a little known mining station in the Korel Sector, a day`s trip off of Bejita. After that, much to his own protests, she slammed the pod shut, pausing only briefly to speak in the same way a mother would to her child.   
  
"Just live," she said, tears in her eyes. Raditz paused in his attempts to get out, as he surely could have annihilated the pod in an instant. Instead, he watched Celipa dash madly for the exit and smack the mandatory launch button for any pods with actual occupants. In seconds, both Kakarot and Brolli, as well as Raditz, were all shut out of sight, then promptly shot up towards space itself.   
  
_ "Just live,"_ she echoed in thought, running as fast as she could towards the entrance of the entire facility.   
  
_ Get closer to the thrill  
Only time will kill  
What's in your eyes  
Is so alive  
  
_ "Good," Toma finally managed to say, wiping the blood off of his face and standing straight in the chaos, watching the three ivory fireballs launching up out of the nearby complex. He had a quirky feeling as to who was in each, but didn`t have the time to act on it as Celipa made it outside, wearing something of a mix between a smile and a frown as she viewed his carelessness.   
  
It cost him dearly a second later.   
  
"**_TOMA!!!_**"   
  
_ Adrenaline keeps me in the game   
  
_ Still wearing his jovial expression, Toma slowly began to fall over, blood pouring out of a blaster wound in his chest. A wound that ran clear, allowing Celipa to see behind Toma through it, though she refrained from doing so. He never even hit the ground though, finding himself instead cradled in the arms of a woman who now realized, all too late, of course, that she had loved him. She always had and she always would.   
  
"Toma..."   
  
"Did you get them off-world?" Toma asked with some of the last of his breath, the life draining out of him rapidly. She only mutely nodded. "Good," he wheezed out.   
  
Willpower alone, and devotion with it, compelled him to force the words out though. They were dry, under a breath that hadn`t existed, but he said them anyway.   
  
_ Adrenaline you don't even feel the pain   
  
_ "I love you."   
  
_ Wilder than your wildest dreams   
  
_ And with that, To Toma died.   
  
_ When you're going to extremes   
  
_ "I love you too," Celipa whispered with a soft voice, regretfully allowing the large Saiyan`s body to sag down to the concrete of the ground, laying her forehead onto his own. That, of course, was her own mistake, as the same blaster which had killed Toma soon found it`s mark on her back, punching through armor and blasting a small crater beneath both of the two. With only a small, dying smile, Celipa collapsed onto Toma`s body and then, just as he had, died in a matter of seconds.   
  
_ It takes adrenaline   
  
_ Bardock groaned to himself. He had felt them die. Felt everything about them come to an end. They were gone but the pain refused to leave him, becoming louder. "Please..."   
  
A pause.   
  
"Not again," he pleaded, gritting his teeth and screaming as another vision began.   
  
_ Run through the speed of sound  
Everything slows you down  
  
_ The vision ended as Bardock came to, leering out to the right of the singular viewport of the small craft in time to spot a Saucer-class starship, though this was one he instantly recognized. The markings, the fact that it was completely spotless and the mixture of gold and sartin alloys were all key giveaways as to the ship`s identity. It was the Ice Jewel, Lord Frieza`s own personal transport, even though Bardock knew that it had probably been modified with enough shields and internal reinforcement fields that it could probably pass off more as an unarmed battleship of some kind.   
  
"It`s starting," Bardock muttered, leaning back again and closing his eyes, only to feel time come to a dead stop for a split second.   
  
Kakarot`s space pod darted by, and for the first time in nearly two days, Bardock let out an emotionally and physically exhausted smile to himself. How he knew was anyone`s guess, but he knew all the same and that was what mattered.   
  
_ And all color that surrounds you  
Are bleeding to the walls  
  
_ **_"Behold Bardock,"_** the voice of his dead tormentor began to repeat.   
  
"A savior has been born," Bardock finished raggedly. "A savior who can protect the good and the innocent from the likes of Frieza..."   
  
A pause. The voice seemed to wait in expectation.   
  
_ All the things you really need  
Just wait to find the speed  
_   
"And me."   
  
_ Then you will achieve   
Escape velocity  
  
**"Precisely,"**_ the voice stated, almost seeming to lose the fire with which it had tortured him since that fateful chop to the back of the neck. Silence finally fell, both in the pod and in Bardock`s thoughts.   
  
It didn`t last long though, an explosion sounded, distant and almost quiet, but easily heard and felt in the silence of the space pod as it slowed down on automatic. The explosion had come from Frieza`s own space ship, the result was a spray of Saiyan bodies flying out. They had been the elite guard, warriors who registered at close to 15,000 each. No where near the 170,000 of the King himself, and utterly futile against the insane levels of Frieza. They had been the elite guard, warriors who had few peers and even fewer fears.   
  
They had been the elite guard.   
  
Now they were lifeless debris, floating towards burn-up on re-entry into Bejita`s atmosphere. Just a few of the already millions-high level of casualties, which was still rising on the planet below. The same planet that Bardock was on a crash course for.   
  
_ Too much is not enough   
  
_ With a loud suction, the remaining pressure pad atop one of the dozens of launch complexes that dotted the burning cityscape of the capital of the adopted homeworld of the Saiyan people. Two guards were in sight, as was a low level warrior, who ran through the exit onto the landing pad only to be gunned down from a series of desperation-level blaster shots.   
  
The pod opened, Bardock lumbered out, staring blearily at the two guards. Both were drinking friends of he and the rest of his crew, they were probably just trying to survive. He wasn`t going to stop them, and they weren`t even noticing him until he let out a hacking cough and staggered by without a word. "Bardock?!" One of the two asked. He only gave a backhanded wave with a gauntleted hand covered in his own dried blood, staggering on into the darkening confines of the facility.   
  
_ Nobody gave it up   
  
_ Minutes passed in absent resolution. Bardock continued on, sweat pouring down, caked up blood flaking away at times and brawls happening throughout the staircase while he trudged onward to the top. No one noticed him, everyone was too busy fighting for their own lives to care about someone who looked as if he was about to die anyway. For what it was worth, he paid them no mind either, thinking instead.   
  
_ "A savior... Against monsters like Frieza and me... A savior... My son... A savior..."   
  
_ Another flash. Bardock lurched forward again and vomited up a combination of half-digested food, bile and blood, both dry and fresh. The effects of the visions were enough to bring anyone to their knees, especially someone who had been having them since he`d gotten them. It was a wonder Bardock`s brain hadn`t shut down by now.   
  
_ I'm not the kind   
  
_ Quietly though, with resolve he had been lacking, Bardock straightened up. The planet was eerily familiar. Strangely devoid of wild life. Oddly shaped trees were everywhere in the distance, the skies a beautifully mundane shade of green with the clouds only faintly contrasting. The water was crystal, clear and blue as drinking water that had never needed a single bit of filtration to be healthy. Fish could be seen, and then he recognized vaguely bird-like creatures hovering in the skies.   
  
But there was something too wrong about this pristine place. Something familiar as well.   
  
"**_FRIEZA! COME OUT! I KNOW YOU`RE HERE SOMEWHERE, STOP HIDING FROM ME!!!_**"   
  
An echo. Was he alone? He bent forward in exhaustion.   
  
"Bardock..."   
  
Apparently not.   
  
"... _Who is it_?!" Bardock demanded. The voice wasn`t Frieza`s, that much was obvious. "Who`s there?! Show yourself!"   
  
Silence.   
  
"Come out! I know you`re here!" Bardock yelled, only to feel a jolt. Slowly, ever so slowly, the Saiyan warrior bent back upright, knowingly looking towards his right, expectant of a tyrant, a demon from Hell come to take his soul where it belonged for all the atrocities he had commited in his lifetime. What he found instead -   
  
"You know who I am, don`t you, Bardock?"   
  
- shocked him more than any demon ever could.   
  
A man, maybe in his mid-twenties at most, back turned. His same build, but skin that showed signs of never having been exposed to the kind of environments that had given Bardock himself a near-permanent tan. Unscarred from the looks of things, but standing with the strength and the purpose of a warrior born from day one to protect, to make sure that good and the innocent, those who could not defend themselves, were.   
  
Slowly though, Bardock reached up, almost smiling, almost breaking into a fit of sobbing hysterics as he put out a hand, however futile the gesture was for the distance between the two was too great for Bardock to ever grasp, even if it was only a few simple steps that seperated them. Two words came out of his mouth, twice in a row, the only two that he could fathom enough to put together in an actual sentence.   
  
"... My son... _My son_..."   
  
"It`s not too late, Father," the other stated, slowly craning his head back to set a forceful gaze onto Bardock, one that almost made the older Saiyan break into pieces from it`s intensity alone. It was his son alright. "It`s not too late to be different."   
  
"Different?"   
  
"Different from him," Kakarot replied, though his lips did not move. In an instant, his image seemed to blur and distort, clarifying back up to reveal Frieza with a menacing laugh. Bardock only barely had time to scream before the vision ended.   
  
Again, he stumbled forward onto his hands and knees, near the top of the stairs. In that instant, he knew what his son had meant. It was too late to avoid the punishment that he knew was coming, but it wasn`t too late to be different.   
  
It was too late to avoid his final judgement, but it wasn`t too late to find redemption.   
  
With a warrior`s - no, a _hero`s_ determination, Bardock forced himself back up to his feet alone, dazedly standing his ground on a stairway straight up to Hell, and dazedly standing there with a mirthless smile. The last steps were the easiest, maybe his legs were numb, maybe his resolve was too great for the pain to even reach him, but whatever the reason, the end result was that he was standing atop one of the few remaining buildings. Fires blazed, chaos reigned and a black dot swayed before the sun.   
  
It was time.   
  
"Totepo... Panboukin..."   
  
A thoughtful pause. A quick breath.   
  
"Celipa... Toma..."   
  
Emotions, sorrow and hatred, but still an unconditional camaraderie-based love, the same as in any blood family.   
  
"... Kakarot..."   
  
_ To lay down and die   
  
_ "This is for _you_!"   
  
Without another word, an aura of bluish fire lit up from the ground around his boots to an arc several feet above his head, burning bright in the dull afternoon lighting, a sharp contrast to the crimson and orange flames littering the city. His aura blazing though, Bardock just had a few things left to do, and all of them were linked to taking flight and heading up for low orbit.   
  
_ Adrenaline   
Keeps me in the game   
  
_ The skies were a blur, Bardock barely paid attention to them anyway. He had tunnel vision, seeing only the masses, endless as they were, of Frieza`s men coming right for him from the Ice Jewel. He could have cared less for them all, but they were moving into his way, and that meant that he had no choice but to care for them, at least care about getting them out of the way.   
  
_ Wilder than your wildest dreams  
When you're going to extremes  
  
_ "Stop him!" One of the countless soldiers ordered. The fact that they were all apparently among Frieza`s elites wasn`t a fact that Bardock ignored either. If they had been normal soldiers, they`d`ve been issued blasters, or even provided with actual helmets to give them oxygen. Elites, like Bardock, were strong enough to hold oxygen through an unseeable aura, secondary to the one currently burning like a fireball around him.   
  
_ "Time to end this,"_ Bardock thought, plunging headlong into the mass of alien warriors like a Saiyan demon from Hell itself.   
  
It takes adrenaline   
  
"**_FRIEZA!!!_**" Bardock screamed, flying along at full speed even with close to twenty of the dictator`s supposed elites grappled onto him, trying to slow him down or stop him all together.   
  
A backhand here, an elbow there, a close ranged energy blast and most of them were off, about half of them were dead but he didn`t care much, not even enough to crack a smile. Determination personified the moment as more elites lined up in front of him. A kick through the first`s head, blasts for half of those after him. The other half either got out of the way or found themselves smashed to a bloody series of pulps as Bardock continued his furious rampage, glaring at the Ice Jewel from afar.   
  
_ Adrenaline  
Screaming out your name   
  
_ "**_I`M COMING FOR YOU, FRIEZA!!!_**"   
  
_ Adrenaline   
You don't even feel the pain  
Wilder than your wildest dreams  
When you're going to extremes   
  
_ And then the action seemed to hit a high point as another number of elites pooled up in front of him. Bardock only growled under his breath and went into a series of vicious punches and kicks, never slowing for even a second in his relentless assault. Against one low class Saiyan, for whom injury had provided a decisive boost in power and loss had provided a motive like none other, Frieza`s elite could only fall to the wayside, smashed like tin cans in a tornado.   
  
_ It takes adrenaline   
  
_ And then it all came to a sudden, silent halt. Silence punctuated and broken by the sound of the top hatch on the Ice Jewel sliding open. Apparently, the explosion that had left one of it`s numerous viewports blown out hadn`t damaged much else, and it hadn`t hurt the one person that Bardock had rampaged through hundreds of others to get to.   
  
An expression of utter contempt was what greeted the lone Saiyan as Frieza himself rode out from within his ship, sitting in his hoverchair like he almost always did. The Aisu`s tail hung limply over the side of the black half-pod, and his horns hung in an especially angry seeming way.   
  
_ Adrenaline   
  
_ "You had something to say, Saiyan. Do it," Frieza ordered sternly, watching with disgust as his so-called 'elites' trembled in terrified submission, while one Saiyan held firm, defiantly hovering before him as no others had and no others would for more than twenty years. Bardock siezed the oppertunity though, raggedly straightening up and speaking out loudly enough that everyone could hear him.   
  
"On behalf of my crew and my people, _we quit_! For too long, we`ve been your arms and legs, _no more_! You can fight your own battles from now on, you lazy little albino bastard!" Bardock shouted angrily, slowly raising his hand while Frieza raised his finger, a lone dot of orange held above it. "And oh yeah, one other thing..."   
  
With a defiant laugh, Bardock drew back and gathered what power remained in him. Every last ounce of it, even power that wasn`t his to begin with. All of it was pulled together, gathering until it was visible as a basketball sized sphere of bluish-white fire around his hand. "This is from my crew, to you for all the people we killed in your name!" Bardock exclaimed, throwing the attack with all of his might.   
  
Frieza only laughed. In an instant, the small orange dot had grown before the eyes of Bardock and everyone else there, until it was almost the size of a small moon, and it kept growing after that until it absorbed Bardock`s attack at halfway like nothing, stopping right then and there. Still laughing, much to Bardock`s dismay, Frieza pointed his index finger forward, right at the planet below.   
  
"Here, have a gift from me as well!" He shouted, loudly enough that it seemed to freeze the elites in horror. The Death Ball continued forward, but Bardock only smirked as one last vision struck him...   
  
_ You don't even feel the pain   
  
_ Kakarot, grown tall and proud, standing directly across from Frieza on the same planet as most of the visions, his hair gold, his body battered and bruised, but his eyes showing the same determination that had seen his father to the end.   
  
_ You don't even feel the pain   
  
_ Still smiling, even as the fires of death consumed him and his armor and clothing, his tail and his skin all burned away one by one, Bardock`s voice echoed through deep space, hitting Frieza like a ghost. The dictator`s own thoughts were going to be plagued by the name he heard, and they would be plagued for a long time.   
  
_ There is nothing in between   
  
_ "**_KAKAROT!!!_**"   
  
_ You don't even feel the pain   
  
_ In a flash, Breh Bardock, like the rest of the Saiyans on planet Vegeta, died. Unlike them though, Bardock died laughing.   
  


**_ Hours later, Frieza 108, Korel Sector   
  
_**

"You`re one of the only survivors," the doctor stated as Raditz leaned forward, head in his hands. "My mother and father?" He asked quietly. "The only other survivors we know of are Kageba Nappa and Vegeta Bejita," the doctor replied, quietly dabbing on a medical slop used to heal small cuts and bruises faster. "What about the people off planet?" Raditz asked quietly.   
  
The doctor was silent.   
  
The boy already knew what that meant. Hit squads. He was probably the only Saiyan aside from Nappa and Vegeta who wasn`t going to be killed.   
  
_**

Days later, the wildlands near Mount Paozu, Earth   
  


**_ The whining had been enough of a nuisance to wake the dead, but for the eighty-eight year old martial arts legend known as Son Gohan, it was merely a slight distraction from his daily activities. The forestland all around was in near perfect condition this year, a relatively sunny, somewhat cloudy afternoon was the time, but to the old master, it was but a small distraction from the daily routine he had of wandering around, picking fruits and such, either to sell or to eat, whichever felt better to him.   
  
He was benevolent in all ways as far as his appearance went, a kindly smile dotting his expression. Aged eyes, white eyebrows and a matching mustache, thick and setting a look to him that made him appear just as nice as he actually was.   
  
"Now what is a little boy like you doing all the way out here?" He asked with a smile, heaving up the strangely heavy feeling baby. He couldn`t have been older than a week and yet he was at a stage of development that took most babies months on end to hit.   
  
There was also his tail, which curled visibly around Gohan`s wrist a few moments later.   
  
"Strange little fellow, aren`t ya?" He asked at the boy`s puzzled expression before breaking into a mild chuckle. "Don`t worry my boy, I`m a bit of a strange one, myself," he leaned in with a smile. "Believe it or not."   
  
The child cocked his head to the side and then promptly kicked Gohan right in the side of the head. It was a kick that would`ve leveled most men less than half his age, yet the old master merely laughed it off before tossing the child into the air and catching him. "Bit cranky, aren`t ya?" He asked, still smiling. The baby let out a cackle in response and tried to kick him again, but Gohan was too quick this time, tilting his head out of the way. "Can`t be doin` that now, don`t wanna knock your new grandpa out, do ya?" He asked, making up his mind to adopt the child right then and there.   
  
"But what do I call you..."   
  
It was a nice day out.   
  
"Hmm..."   
  
So sunny, just enough clouds to be interesting.   
  
"Maybe... No, no... That wouldn`t work. Perhaps..."   
  
So warm, and pleasant, such a wonderful look to the sky...   
  
"I know!" A pause. "I`ll name you Goku!" The elder stated proudly. The newly dubbed Goku let out a cackle in response, infectious enough that Gohan himself soon joined in.   
  


_** Weeks later, the Shore of Nasie, Themyscira   
  
**_

Quietly, Vasha walked forward to the small crater that had somehow taken shape earlier in the morning. Given Themyscira`s location in the grand scheme of things, and how little conflict took place there, it was especially rare that anything even remotely akin to an actual explosion would have taken place. It was a world isolated from the galaxy at large, it`s inhabitants were the descendants survivors of a virus that had virtually wiped out every single male creature on the planet and left only plant life - most of it either female or androgynous - to survive.   
  
The women were peaceful, they`d known conflict before but they didn`t bother with it now. Essentially, the universe had a way of balancing things out. Namek was the polar opposite of Themyscira, composed of asexual people who were more male, while the Themyscirans, by now asexual themselves(they reproduced in essentially the same way as Nameks), were more female.   
  
Vasha didn`t think of these things though, uneasily sliding down the edge of the crater, which was now beginning to fill with water since the tide was coming in. The lone ball of metal and glass at it`s center was virtually unscathed though, and after she had gotten close enough, she took dangerous note of how the pod door slipped open with a gasp of air.   
  
The sight inside was not a pretty one. Nor were the words that kept echoing out.   
  
"Guuan phor, Brolli, draevel ulu elgg... Guuan phor, Brolli, draevel ulu elgg..." It kept repeating. Vasha didn`t like it one bit, but the visual of the brutalized baby lying inside was something she disliked even more.   
  
Reaching within, she was careful to bring out what felt like a corpse. He was cold, blood had caked up around a wound in his side, and it had soaked around where he`d been laying. No food meant that even though he`d somehow clung to life, he was disastrously thin. Even if the boy had been alive when he`d landed, she doubted he would`ve stayed that way long enough for her to have reached him when she did.   
  
And then she felt a small, vibrant twitch. Death seemed to throw the boy back from the brink and his small, shrunken chest expanded in slow, ragged breaths. Timidly, Vasha watched him while climbing out of the crater, leaving the pod behind.   
  
"What to call you?" She asked, though the words were actually in her native language, spoken with a tone that matched the pity in her voice. And then she remembered the placement and emphasis on the word 'Brolli' from the pod, speaking it quietly a few moments later to see how he might respond.   
  
"Brolli?"   
  
A kick. Random, but powerful. If it had hit her, it probably would`ve left more than a tiny bruise, even in his horrendously weakened state.   
  
"Brolli, it is then. Let`s get you to a doctor..."   
  


_ End Preludes  
  


* * *

  
  
_

**Author`s Note:** To Toma is Tomato with the last To jumbled a bit, Breh Bardock is Herb, and I think Bardock translates in it`s original form as herbal tea or something. Kerim Celipa is a pun off of something my older sister used to do("Cream cheese and celery, cream cheese and celery *does a jig*"). And yes, Themyscira IS a name taken from the cartoon, Justice League. It`s the home of the amazons, a bunch of warrior women. There you have it.  
  
The _Sh33p_


End file.
